


Heart to Heart

by Sholio



Series: Psychic Neal AU [4]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drugs, Gen, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-10
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-13 23:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Vital Signs" in the Psychic!Neal universe. For the h/c bingo square "insecurity".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart to Heart

When Peter discovered that Neal had vanished into the Howser Clinic, he knew immediately that Neal's worst fear had come true. Well, maybe his second-worst fear -- Neal hadn't been disappeared by the government, but by a private business. Which was, in Peter's opinion, infinitely worse. If the government had locked Neal up in a lab somewhere, there were channels to go through. Strings he could pull. Highly-placed friends of friends that he could talk to.

But the Howser Clinic answered to no one. They had contacts and branch clinics around the world. If they managed to get Neal onto a plane, no one would ever see him again, and there wouldn't be a damn thing Peter could do to find him.

Which was why he was currently hiding with a drugged-up Neal in an office-supply closet, waiting for the search to die down so that he could smuggle them both out the back of the building. 

He still couldn't believe that he'd done something so rash and, frankly, insane as sneaking into the clinic without backup, without a search warrant ... If only he'd been able to do what he was planning to do, which was sneak in, find Neal, and sneak out again. But no ... they hadn't left Neal unguarded for a second, which had meant overpowering and tying up the guards, and it was impossible to do _that_ quietly. Now the whole building was hunting for them.

He might have known things would go haywire. Things always did, when Neal was around.

"I like you," Neal said, throwing an arm around Peter's neck. On top of everything, they barely had room to move, sandwiched as they were between boxes of paper and stacks of spare printer cartridges.

Peter carefully disentangled Neal's arm. "That's nice. I'll decide whether I like _you_ once we're out of here."

He checked his phone, as if he could conjure messages magically out of nowhere, and tried to think of anyone else he could call who might be able to help. Diana was on her way with a getaway car. She might not know all the details, but he could rely on her to keep her mouth shut. He didn't dare go up the chain of command on this one. Bancroft knew the truth about Neal, but Bancroft wasn't in town, and on top of that, Peter wasn't sure which way he'd fall. As far as most of the Bureau was concerned, Neal was simply a CI on a tracking anklet, and he wasn't supposed to be here. If Peter tipped his hand to the wrong person, Neal would be back in prison and Peter may as well have left him at the clinic; he'd be equally screwed either way. Not to mention that Peter himself would be facing possible career repercussions ...

"Am I in trouble?" Neal asked, as if reading his mind. There were times when Peter had to remind himself that Neal couldn't do that anymore; he still had an uncanny ability to guess what Peter was thinking.

"Maybe. Well, yes, probably. What were you thinking, pulling a stunt like this? Didn't you know what would happen if they caught you?"

"I was trying _not_ to get caught," Neal said petulantly.

"Yeah, how'd that work out for you?"

It was nearly dark in the closet -- the only light came from a narrow stripe around the door, illuminating them both with a twilight glow. In the dim light, Peter could just make out Neal's frown. 

"What's gonna happen to me now?" Neal asked after a moment's thought.

"I don't know," Peter said, and wearily leaned his head against the box of printer paper behind him. "The Howser Clinic's going to want to hush this up, so that's a point in our favor, at least. There's no way they'll be able to explain to their financial backers that they locked you up in order to have a telepath of their very own." The fact that they had recognized Neal at all, though, made Peter very nervous. It meant that the secret of Neal and the others wasn't quite as well-kept as Agent Stark always implied. How many other unscrupulous individuals might be hunting Neal and his lab-siblings, even now?

Neal hesitated, perhaps scraping together his scattered thoughts, then spoke in the earnest voice of a drunk about to share a completely inappropriate confession. "Just in case ... in case I go down, in case I can't say this later -- I need to tell you something." 

"Can we not do this now?"

Neal shook his head and grabbed clumsily for Peter's arm. "It's important. Important, Peter. I didn't want to tell you this. Because once I tell you, you won't like me very much."

Peter sighed. In the cramped space, they were so close together that their knees were touching. "Neal, even though you're a complete pain in my ass sometimes -- well, a lot of the time ... I do like you."

"Not after this."

Apprehension crawled up Peter's throat. What had Neal _done?_ "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this right now," he said, caught between the burning desire to know, and a stomach-twisting feeling of discomfort at taking advantage of Neal's current state to pump him for information.

"You need to know," Neal persisted. "Nobody knows this. The feds don't know it. Even Mozzie doesn't know it. Remember when I told you about -- how Matthew, how he killed those people, that -- at the --"

Neal floundered to a stop, uncharacteristically for him. "Matthew Keller. At the lab, when you were kids. Yes, I remember," Peter said quietly.

"I didn't tell you how he did it," Neal said in a very small voice.

The crawling nervousness in his throat became a cold hand that closed around his stomach. "Neal, I _really_ think we shouldn't talk about this now."

"But you should know," Neal said. He swallowed. "Matthew, he did it with -- with his mind."

A part of Peter -- the part of him that occasionally paused in disbelief to wonder how this had become his _life_ \-- had known Neal was heading there. Still, Peter's lungs seemed to have become paralyzed. Even knowing Neal as he'd come to know him, there was a part of him that desperately wished he had one of the telepathy-blocking caps he'd worn back when Neal's powers were fully functional.

In the dim light, he could see that Neal was huddled in on himself. Peter remembered how withdrawn Neal had become when he'd started talking about it that day in the Burkes' spare bedroom. At the time, Peter had chalked it up to trauma and the fact that Neal was in pain. Now, he could tell that there was a whole lot more mixed up in Neal's reaction. Guilt. Fear. Misery. With the drug wiping out his usual ability to guard himself, all his emotions were plain on his face.

Peter made himself take a breath and relax before he asked, "Can you do that?"

"I don't know," Neal said, so softly Peter could barely hear him.

There was a long silence between them. Then Peter touched Neal's arm and felt him flinch.

"I think I have an answer for you. Remember that day you took down Risetti?" The money launderer had stabbed Peter -- and hit the floor a minute later. Peter had never seen Neal so furious. "If you could, I don't think Risetti would still be alive."

"Oh," Neal said. "Ohhhhh ... you're _smart,_ Peter." Then he frowned, looking troubled. "But I never tried. I was scared to try. Maybe I could learn to."

"Do you _want_ to learn?"

"No!" Neal said quickly. Despite his slurred speech, his sincerity and horror came through clearly.

"So don't learn." Peter's phone buzzed; he pulled it out and checked the messages.

"You're smart," Neal decided. "Smart, _and_ strong."

"And you're high." Peter couldn't help it; he ruffled Neal's hair, then let his hand slip down to Neal's shoulder. "Diana's here; what do you say we try to make our getaway?"

 

***

 

Diana dropped them off at the Burkes', and Peter deposited a grumpy and somewhat more _compos mentis_ Neal on the couch. 

"My _head,_ " Neal groaned.

"Migraine?" Peter asked, and Neal shook his head, then winced.

"No, just a run-of-the-mill headache. Thank heaven." 

Neal hadn't had a full-blown migraine since he'd started taking some sort of medication for them -- he hadn't been forthcoming with details, and there were times when Peter could tell he was in pain or at least uncomfortable, but at least he wasn't having to take sick days for it anymore.

"Is there any chance that whatever they gave you might react badly with what you're already taking? Should I call your doctor?"

Neal shook his head again. "If it was going to, I think I'd already know. I just need to lie down for a while."

Peter went and fetched a bottle of aspirin and a glass of ice water. After passing these to Neal, he sat on the edge of the coffee table. "So," he said carefully, "do you remember what we talked about at the clinic?"

Neal had thrown his arm over his eyes; now he lowered it, and the look he gave Peter was guarded, wary. Almost hostile. "Some of it," he said slowly.

"Believe me, I don't want to talk about it any more than you do. But we have to."

Neal closed his eyes. "Damn it. I wasn't ..."

"Wasn't going to tell me?" Peter said sharply. "What if we run into Keller one of these days, and I get on his bad side? What about anyone _else_ who gets on his bad side?"

Neal's eyes snapped open again, and he sat up, wincing. "D'you know what would happen if the feds knew about Matthew, Peter?"

"They'd know that he's even more dangerous than they already thought, and they'd be able to take measures to protect themselves and others."

"I'm guessing those 'measures' would be a sniper at 300 yards," Neal said. He met Peter's eyes with his own -- flat, blue, and cynical enough for a man twice his age. "Peter, we kept a _lot_ of things from our keepers. Not everything is in those files you saw. And that's because if they knew about things like this? They wouldn't be trying to catch us. They'd be trying to kill us."

Peter wanted to protest, but he couldn't even bring himself to say it. He believed in the system, believed in his country, but both of them were run by ordinary men and women, with ordinary human fears and prejudices. He knew some of the things the CIA got up to. He knew better than to believe Neal would be safe. 

"But you told _me_ ," he pointed out.

"Only under the influence of drugs," Neal muttered. He rubbed his head and lay back down. "Peter, I ... This is something I wish you didn't know about me."

"It's something Keller can do. Not something you can do. You told me that."

"I don't know that I can't learn it, though. I never tried, I never _wanted_ to --"

"So don't learn. Like I said before."

Neal snorted. "Everything always has an easy answer for you, doesn't it?"

"Some answers _are_ easy."

"Only you would say that," Neal said quietly, but there was a lightness in his voice that hadn't been there before. He sounded drowsy. "I wouldn't blame you for being afraid of me."

"I wasn't afraid of you when you could read minds," Peter said. "Annoyed, yes, but not afraid. This doesn't change anything."

And maybe if he said it aloud enough times, he'd believe it.

While Neal drowsed on the couch, Peter went into the kitchen and fixed a pot of coffee for both of them.

Neal was still Neal, he reminded himself. This was another piece of information he hadn't had before, that's all.

And it wasn't as if he didn't know what it meant that Neal had shared this with him. _Even Mozzie doesn't know,_ Neal had said. It was a gesture of trust that Peter did not intend to take lightly.

And somewhere out there was a man who could kill with his mind. A man who'd gone through the same childhood hell as Neal, but hadn't managed to come out of it with Neal's innate sweetness and fondness for people.

A man who was currently running unchecked among a population of people who had no idea what he could do, like a wolf in a herd of sheep.

And, Peter thought, a man who carried in his head a secret that could spell disaster for Neal and the others like them. Keller was dangerous to everyone around him, but he was dangerous for Neal and the other experimental children in an entirely different way. Locked in Keller's head was a secret that could spell doom for all of them.

Finding Matthew Keller hadn't been a priority for Peter before. But, he realized, it had just become one.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a bit of a delay before I post the next installment, because it's quite long (~30K words) and harrowing, and still needs revisions. Also, as Mozzie and Neal quoted in season three: "If you want a happy ending, it depends on where you stop the story." Things take a much darker turn from here on out. You can stop reading here, if you like; it's a nice upbeat place to leave them, and there isn't going to be an unequivocal happy ending at the end of all of this.


End file.
